This invention relates generally to a telephonic call distributor system with message recording capability and specifically to a method of automatically returning calls to callers who have recorded a message in such a call distributor system.
Call distributor systems are well known as shown by a review of U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,788,715 issued Nov. 19, 1988 to Lee and 4,800,583 issued Jul. 14, 1989 to Theis. Other similar systems are also shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,696,028 issued Sep. 22, 1987 to Morgenstein et al. and 4,809,321 issued Feb. 28, 1989 to Morgenstein et al. and 4,850,012 issued Jul. 18, 1989 to Mehta et al.
In U.S. Pat. No. 4,788,715 of Lee an automatic call distributor is shown in which customers are given an option to leave a message such as a telephone number if they do not wish to wait in queue after having been informed of the expected waiting time prior to connection to an agent, but no provision is made for systematically returning calls to callers who have left a message.
In U.S. Pat. No. 4,800,583 of Theis, overflow calls are automatically diverted to an overflow center which automatically answers the overflow calls and records messages which are manually converted to a digital form by transcribers and then transmitted in digital form back to the telephone answering center. While this approach provides a system for returning calls, because it is not completely automated, it is labor cost intensive, relatively slow in response time and prone to human error.
In U.S. Pat. No. 4,881,261 of Oliphant et al. an automatic call placing function is provided in conjunction with an automatic call distribution system known as Galaxy ACD System manufactured by Rockwell International Corporation. However, this function operates off a data base of known parties to call and does not provide means for automatically responding to recorded messages from incoming calls or to automatically return calls to parties who left recorded messages.
The other patents noted above also provide systems which interact with an incoming caller and respond to queues to assist in completion of the calls, but again there is no means for automatically returning calls to callers who have left a message or simply hang up after waiting in a queue.